A retractable roof would be a massive structure on a Cricket ground, the playing area of a Test Ground is probably 3 or 4 times that of a football pitch. T20 could be played in Football stadiums as was mooted many years ago in the John Player League days as short boundaries and close crowds would probably be an asset.

Well baseball grounds do it, as do athletics fields.

I would imagine a test ground moving from in a city center to out of town (generating money for the new ground in the process)

Thanks. Lambert and Butler. I knew it was cigarette related. Glad too it was in the early 1980s. Any earlier and I would be older than I thought. Any later and I would have thought my memory was going.

A retractable roof would be a massive structure on a Cricket ground, the playing area of a Test Ground is probably 3 or 4 times that of a football pitch. T20 could be played in Football stadiums as was mooted many years ago in the John Player League days as short boundaries and close crowds would probably be an asset.

Well baseball grounds do it, as do athletics fields.

I would imagine a test ground moving from in a city center to out of town (generating money for the new ground in the process)

It does also depend on the ground, a lot of the grounds in England are quite open, it'd be a lot easier to do it on a ground like the MCG.

I don’t care about the St Lucia Zouks. And I won’t care about whatever names the 12-year‑olds in marketing invent for the new made-up teams when the existing English Twenty20 is engulfed by yet another new competition in the years ahead. This wretched idea was sold to the county chairmen by bribery – an annual £1.3m sweetener per county – with a tacit undercurrent of threat.

My only interest – in common with many other cricket lovers – is the hope that the damnable thing is a total flop and that we can somehow save the game I once adored, and still love more than the people who have seized control of it. One can say that athletics is in crisis but at least we can be sure that, as long as humanity survives, kids will still try to run faster than their classmates. Cricket’s crisis is an existential one.

Everything worthwhile about it is being destroyed: its culture that the umpire’s decision is final; the delicate balance between bat and ball as the game degenerates into a six-hitting contest; and that even more delicate balance between individual and team that made it imperative for even the most militant individualists not to laugh out loud if one’s own magnificent century failed to save the team from defeat.

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I first met Matthew Engel in the press box at Lord's during the 1983 World Cup Final, when I found myself seated between Matt and Scyld Berrry, who did his best to rival him but was actually an also-ran in the old-foget-before-turning-thirty stakes ( I myself was 29 at the time, so we were all contemporaries).

I like and admire Matthew in many ways, but to be honest, I find it hard to disagree too violently with Kevin Piertersen's view.

He's a very fine writer but not the sort of chap with whom one would want to share a lifeboat.

While everybody else was rowing for the shore, he'd be the one with his head in his hands telling all those pulling hard that it was a wasted effort because they were all bound to die!

talk about connecting the clubs to their future fans
sowing seeds now for the supporters in 20 years time
about football not being a product

This is at the heart of the reservations I have about the new city tournament.

I grew up with cricket in Scarborough - at the cricket club, my local cricket club. As I grew up, I was asked to become involved - in my case, operating the scoreboard.

The club, who were admittedly very successful at the time, drew crowds of 300-700, even topping 1,000 for some big games. County matches staged at Scarborough were the exciting icing on the cake, and the big reward maybe one day's trip to a Test. Sadly now the attendances at Scarborough matches have dwindled to a handful.

If you are growing something, it needs to have roots. Grow up from the bottom, with local interest.

Now cricket has become top-heavy, the season buried under an avalanche of England games, which just seem to be milked as a great cash cow to fund everything.

The T20 Blast has brought back a lot of cricket interest locally, with good crowds at small counties. It's a big success. But the will with City Franchise is to have more big "events" at big grounds, and the Blast, shunted to the side, may well suffer.

You don't "grow the game" by simply loading up grounds with beer boys and girls on a night out.

"Ask not what your club can do for you, but what you can do for your club." How many spectators at City Franchise will ever have that maxim in mind?